What is privacy?

Random House Dictionary defines privacy as "the state of being free from intrusion or disturbance in one's private life or affairs."

Article 12 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks."

There are a lot of mixed messages out there about privacy and how we should think about it especially as it relates to social media. In many ways, social media sites train us to undervalue our privacy. Cory Doctorow observes that "Facebook uses these very powerful, game-like mechanisms to reward disclosure."

What do we really want our children to learn about privacy?

• everything they do online becomes part of their digital footprint;
• it is their responsibility to protect their privacy online;
• it is ultimately their choice how much they share about themselves online.

Here are some practical tips for dealing with privacy issues associated with Google and Facebook:

Google

Google's SafeSearch "blocks web pages containing explicit sexual content from appearing in search results." It should always be set to Use strict filtering. You can update this setting by going to google.com and selecting Search Settings.

Google Profile is a publicly shared profile. You can use google without creating a profile and in general, there is no reason for your child to create a public profile like this.

Google Buzz is a social networking and messaging tool like Facebook. It lets google users create posts, make comments and follow each others conversations. It also has major privacy issues. "Google Buzz posts are public by default. Public buzz that you post will also show up in the 'Buzz' tab of your public Google profile. Your Google profile is searchable on the Web (and can therefore also appear in Google.com search results)."

If you are wondering whether your child has a google profile, uses google buzz or what their public digital footprint is, you can search your child's name, in quotes, and see what shows up.

Facebook

Facebook's privacy settings change often and so they should be checked often. Here are some basic things to consider when using Facebook:

• Facebook has an under age 13 restriction and there are really good reasons for this. I think Facebook's own explanation should be sufficient. "If you are under age 13, please do not attempt to register for Facebook or provide any personal information about yourself to us. We strongly recommend that minors 13 years of age or older ask their parents for permission before sending any information about themselves to anyone over the Internet and we encourage parents to teach their children about safe internet use practices."
• If you choose to allow your children access to Facebook, you should have full access to their account as well as friend them with your own account. However, be very wary of "friending" any other children.
• When setting Privacy Settings in Facebook, it's important to use the "preview my profile" option, so you can see what is shared with others.
• Using the friend of friend setting opens up exponentially the access that other people have to your Facebook account.
• Disable the Places feature, otherwise friends can check you into a place, telling the world where you are.
• Ensure Public search is not enabled.

Even I can't keep up with the changes, so I'm linking to the latest update I have found called Facebook Privacy: 10 Settings Every User Needs to Know. This gives detailed information on updating various privacy and security settings.